Pierné and Grainger from Sokoloff and Cleveland

In recent years, I've devoted three posts to the work of conductor Nikolai Sokoloff, the first music director of the illustrious Cleveland Orchestra. The first was devoted to Tchaikovsky, Halvorsen, Sibelius, Borodin, Martinu and Britten, followed by Saint-Saëns and Nicolai and Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

The music in today's post is much different, consisting of two brief but delightful pieces, Gabriel Pierné's "March of the Little Fauns" and Percy Grainger's "Shepherd's Hey," in most characterful performances. Both works were relatively new when Sokoloff and the Clevelanders took them up - the Pierné written in 1914-15 but not performed until 1923, and the Grainger dating from 1918. Sokoloff's recording is from 1928.

The Pierné piece is from his ballet Cydalise et le chèvre-pied. "Chèvre-pied" is literally translated "goat-foot," but it actually refers to a satyr. The dance we usually call the "March of the Little Fauns" in English is in French "L'École des Ægipans," with Ægipans being a type of satyr. Well, it is a march and it is an impressionist work, so "March of the Little Fauns" makes sense, I guess. Sokoloff calls it "The School of the Fauns."

Gabriel Pierné, Nikolai Sokoloff, Percy Grainger

By whatever title, it is a delightful piece, and Sokoloff and band have a great deal of fun with it, being more flexible than other performances I have heard. The entire ballet is worthwhile - I plan to transfer Jean Martinon's 1970 recording of the ballet suite for my other blog.

Percy Grainger's "Shepherd's Hey" also is very amusing. The composer collected English folk songs, and subjected this Morris dance tune to a variety of imaginative transformations. Grainger did not much care about development of the theme; he just keeps running through it with different treatments. Wit and good humor abound, and the Clevelanders make the most of the revels.

The composer scored the work for concert band, but this version includes strings. Grainger often arranged his work for various ensembles - as did others - so I am not sure who is behind this orchestration. It is highly effective, in any case.

These recordings were made in Carnegie Hall and have good if at times slightly raw sound. By 1928, Brunswick had moved on from the "Light-Ray" electrical recording process, and adopted the superior Western Electric process used by other companies. The orchestra and Sokoloff made no more recordings together after these May 1928 sessions. Their story is told in this post.

The Grainger is cleaned up from an Internet Archive needle-drop that was misidentified as the Pierné piece. The actual "March/School of the Fauns/Satyrs" is missing there, so I worked from a lossy version that sounds just fine after some ministrations. Both are presented in ambient stereo.